


The Sensational Liberation of the Sorceress Calypso

by xoxoMouse



Series: PJO Personal Canon (General) [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst?, Basically what would have happened if Artemis had told Calypso she was free after the 2nd titan war, Calypso - Freeform, Calypso and Artemis are black, Calypso joins the hunters, Canon Divergence, Fix It Fic, Gen, HoO - Freeform, Hunters of Artemis, Ogygia, Ogygia (Percy Jackson), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PJO, PJOverse, ToA - Freeform, What calypso deserved, character exploration, percy jackson mentioned - Freeform, post bol, post pjo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoxoMouse/pseuds/xoxoMouse
Summary: Canon divergent story where Artemis comes to tell Calypso she's no longer a prisoner on Ogygia after the 2nd Titan War.
Relationships: Calypso & Artemis (Percy Jackson), Calypso & Zoë Nightshade (Percy Jackson)
Series: PJO Personal Canon (General) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979693
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	1. 1. Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story came from: https://blackpercy.tumblr.com/ who gave me permission to write this based on his specific post: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/blackpercy/617571997072916480 about Calypso joining the Hunters. His only request was that Calypso and Artemis be black and that's already canon so I was happy to do that. (Okay I lied, he also wanted Calypso to have a gun but she won't get one until the next chapter.)

The first time a man washed up on the shores of her beach, Calypso was sure the gods’ fury with her had finally subsided. They wouldn’t have let it happen if they hadn’t found it in their hearts to forgive her in some measure, to grant  leniency in her sentencing, right? Surely company would be too great a reward otherwise.

She dressed the man in simple white linens and nursed him back from his weak, dehydrated state She tended his wounds, listened to his stories, and broke bread with him. The more she learned about his life, the more she was inclined to share about herself. Each morning they woke to the sunrise and every night they fell into sleep to the chorus of creatures that inhabited Ogygia, frogs croaking from the lake and owls speaking to each other from the trees, and the wind brushing gently against the trees outside the door. There was never a sour day on her island; each morning promised an expanse of blue sky and brilliant hours under the sun spent in her gardens with her companion. Slowly, she grew to love him.

But he was a hero, this much she knew, and as he spoke of the  world he’d left behind she knew where his heart lay.

The raft arrived one night after dinner. A simple thing, ten logs bound together as the deck and a mast with a white linen sail docked on her shore in the same place where she’d found him so long ago. Before then, he’d resigned himself to life apart from everything he’d known before—but she could see the light in his eyes when he realized what it meant for him. He could go  _ home.  _ How could she deny him that? He didn’t even spare her one more night together. He left her alone on the shore with no one but the stars to keep her company.

That’s where she realized she was wrong, on the beach under the stars with the saltwater nipping at her toes as the waves flowed in and out and the wind blew her beaded braids around her face. So long into her sentencing and the gods saw fit not to loosen their hold on her, but to punish her further. As if solitude wasn’t burden enough, now they’d given her a taste of something more and snatched it away just as fast. If she could have died on then on that beach rather than be alone, she would have. Anything was better than living this way indefinitely. And it would be indefinitely—she was well aware by now that she was immortal. 

Sometime after that, she became more nocturnal than not. She didn’t really need to sleep anyway; but now when she did it was during the day, letting the sun warm her skin as she lied in the soft piles of sand or the plush patches of grass by the lake—even in the hand-woven hammock in her garden, letting the smell of wet dirt and honeysuckle fill her nose.

At night she made a habit of memorizing the patterns in the sky, each and every pinprick of light that shone against the dark expanse above her was slowly but surely committed to her memory. Every so often a new constellation would appear. A dog with three heads, a small bear and its mother—when the next person arrived on her island to punish her, a woman this time, she begged to know the stories that accompanied the new silhouettes. This time when she was abandoned she had the stories of the stars to keep her company.

Eventually, new constellations stopped appearing as frequently as they had. When they stopped altogether, more than five heroes since the last addition and far longer than usual between heroes than was normal, she wondered if the world of gods and mortals even existed anymore. She’d be completely in the dark if something happened to the world outside Ogygia. For all she knew, the titans could have escaped their chains at last and destroyed whatever semblance of order the gods had created for themselves in the past several thousands of years.

They used to visit sometimes, the gods, her estranged family; but it had been even longer since she’d seen any of them than the last  time she saw a hero. Maybe the gods really were dead after all, and she’d rot here, forgotten by her titan father when they regained their former glory. Death was impossible for her, but madness...

She shook the possibility of her mind deteriorating while she sat in her gilded cage as far away from her thoughts as she could. She wove more, she practiced braiding her hair tightly against her scalp in intricate curves and patterns, she tended to her flower garden. Then, on a rare night, she fell asleep counting the stars, instead of being visited by a hero or a god she woke before dawn to find a small drawstring bag clasped in her hands. A label tag on the string was written in neat, small, blocky script in the language of the gods: ‘Moonlace’ it read. When she peered inside the pouch she found a pile of small brown seeds. They were less than half the size of her pinky nail, oval with soft white spines coming from the ridges on the outer layer. They looked like the seeds of one of her wildflowers—except for the fact that there was a soft white glow emitting from them. There was no note saying who the seeds were from.

She planted the immediately, clearing a space in a plot surrounded by flowers that wouldn’t bloom until the sun relaxed their petals open in a few hours. She poked holes in the soil, dropped the glowing seeds gently inside them, and lovingly patted the dirt in place over them. She collected her watering can and tilted it over the plot, letting the droplets fall slowly in thin lines and moisten the soil that was now home to the strange new plant.

She stayed with her seeds almost every moment, leaving only to tend her other plants when they needed. With her knees pulled up to her chest and the can sitting beside her, she waited. The days and nights melted past her in a blur as she watched the ground where her mysterious seeds were growing, changing, maturing into the plants they were meant to be. Their first stems and leaves broke the surface about a week after she’d planted them. The three fragile little leaves on every stalk were thin and almost looked like the leaves of a carrot sticking up out of the dirt. They were a deep green, but, when night fell a soft white light shone from them. She waited with her new seedlings, her little plot of M oonlace , until the first round bundle of small white flowers opened. The rest of the flowers followed suit, one after the other until one night her garden plot had a sea of brilliant, pale M oonlace flowers blooming and glowing an almost faint moonlight blue while all her other flowers slept.

Soon after that, a new set of stars appeared in the sky: the Huntress. In her left hand she held a bow across her torso and with the right she was reaching back for an arrow to knock against the bowstring. Calypso stared at the constellation for a long time until its shape faded into the blueness of daybreak. By then her Moonlace was beginning to close and she whispered a word of praise to them before she stood, shook the stillness from her joints, and went to attend the other matters on her island. Whenever she looked at the Huntress she felt comfort, an odd kinship with the stars, though she couldn’t explain why.

Percy Jackson shed light on the situation. The Huntress was Zoë Nightshade; she was a lieutenant to the goddess Artemis, protector of girls. She, too, had been a daughter of Atlas. His words stayed with her long after he left, not the ones about saving her—she'd heard promises like those too often to expect them to be kept anymore. No, he said that Zoë had been one of the bravest people he’d ever met. A daughter of  _ Atlas  _ had been good and honorable enough not just to hold that rank in Percy’s heart, but to be a trusted right hand to a goddess. Her sister... For just a moment, the longest she would allow herself, she imagined what her life would be if she every left Ogygia. She imagined being good and honorable, someone who protects others—a hero.

But her fantasies couldn’t last and neither, it seems, did the latest hero’s promise. He never did come back for her to make sure she was freed. Whether or not he won the latest battle, she couldn’t say, though when the gods had begun to visit her again they told her no news. Then, abruptly and without warning, those visits stopped as well.

She sat on the beach and she watched. The waves, the stars, the  horizon line that she would never get to visit. She watched everything as it continued on as normal in the pale blue moonlight. Nothing ever changed, not on her island. Occasionally the sky would shift, though she doubted there would be any new constellations added any time soon. She was so focused on the waves washing up over the sand and pulling it slowly into the sea a layer at a time; wishing that when the tides swept over the dark skin of her legs they might decide to take her as well, wash her out to sea piece by piece, layer by layer until not an ounce of her remained on Ogygia. She was so focused on the thought of the waves taking her away she almost didn’t hear the soft footfalls on the shifting sand. Almost.

The girl was shrouded in moonlight—no, it was coming from the girl herself. Her hair was braided in a thick halo around the top of her head with silver bands around some of the braided sections. The rest of her hair was gathered low on the back of her head into a braided bun. The moonlight shone on the black skin of her face and her expression was regal as she stepped closer. It’d been so long since she’d visited her but Calypso could never forget her face.

“Lady Artemis,” She said, rising from her place on the ground and bowing at the waist. “It is an honor.”

Lady Artemis smiled and crossed the space between them to lay her hand on Calypso’s. She expected the goddess’ palms to be soft but she was surprised to feel their roughness, strong and deft fingers calloused from the hunt. “No need for the formalities,  Sorceress . I’ve been keeping tabs on you—it feels as if we’re already old friends.”

“Can I offer you anything? I can have the wind spirits prepare a meal if you’re hungry,” she offered.

“No, no actually I came with a proposition for you,” she said. “I’ve been observing you. I’ve seen your dedication to the skills you practice, the loom and your spellwork, and I’ve seen your natural nurturing capabilities.” Lady Artemis gave her a knowing look.

“The Moonlace,” she gasped. ”You—”

“—Yes,” she said with a nod. “It was both a gift and a test. I’ve been waiting for the day I could make you this offer for a very long time. And I know if you accept my offer you’ll be able to handle immortality with continued grace and poise.”

“My lady,” Calypso stammered, her hand going to twist at the beads on the ends of her braids. “Are suggesting that I...join the hunt?”

“Only if you want, Calypso. Before you accept or decline I must tell you that you’re free to leave Ogygia either way. One of Percy Jackson’s conditions after he and his demigod army helped the gods defeat the titans was that you be released. The gods approved his request. I’m here to deliver the news.”

The weight of every star in the sky pressed down on her shoulders at once as she processed her new reality. Leave Ogygia? She’d attempted it once, so long ago now that the edges of the memory were blurry in her mind when she looked back on it. The outcome was, well, she obviously hadn’t been successful in her attempt. This island was all she’d ever known. It was her birthplace and her prison and her home...where would she even go in the mortal world? It was like trying to imagine what the seafloor looked like hidden under leagues of the ocean; she had no idea what secrets the mortal world held for her.

As if predicting the questions and fears racing through her head, Lady Artemis spoke. “My hunters are free to leave my service whenever they wish. I don’t hold my girls prisoner. I worry about your fate, Calypso. Once you leave Ogygia you’ll no longer be immortal. With the hunters, you’ll at least have somewhere to start. You’ll have  comrades in arms and you’ll travel the world with us. It will be dangerous at times but you will never be alone.” Lady Artemis’ hand went to her cheek; she stroked her thumb along Calypso’s cheekbone. “Do you know yet what you’ll choose to do with your freedom?” 

Calypso looked into the goddess’ deep brown eyes. Her face was kind and though she appeared as a girl who’s physical form was two or three years younger than her own, she knew better than anyone to let that discredit her. Calypso’s eyes traveled upwards, back to the stars, to the Huntress.

“Will you tell me about my sister?” 

Artemis’ eyes followed hers to where she watched Zoë Nightshade’s form in the sky, forever a guiding body of light.

“Of course.”

Hand in hand they walked across the shores of Ogygia and off into the moonlight.


	2. 2. Sisterhood

Family. It was an odd concept, one that was difficult for Calypso to define. There was her father, with his stern disposition and ceaseless criticism he was ready to bestow upon her at every turn. There were the gods, with their short tempers and long, grudge-holding memories. There were her sisters, her fellow nymphs who wouldn’t even dare to visit, like her banishment was  contagious . 

Loyalty. She supposed it came down to loyalty in the end. Where your  allegiances lied, who you would fight for, who you would give up everything for. That’s what family was—or what it had been, thousands of years ago when she’d stood by her father’s side in the first Titan War. Ever since then the idea had been like a bird, always flitting in the back of her mind. Restless, skittish. Often blurry as it flew past and never trusting enough to let her inch close enough to inspect. Every season it left the discarded feathers of what it used to be littered around her in favor of a new, ever-changing form. She couldn’t pin family down; it had always eluded her. Abandoned her. She’d learned to ignore it, for the sake of her sanity, but that wasn’t the same as making her peace with it.

Lady Artemis’ family of Hunters was an interesting bunch. The girls in her service ranged in suspended age from about eleven to maybe twenty. She wasn’t the best judge of age—especially not where immortal maidens were concerned, but if she had to guess that was what she would say. Lady Artemis explained that her hunters who had joined in later stages of life were in other hunting parties around the globe. The adults weren’t really separated in any specific way, but over the centuries she’d noted that girls whose aging was stoppered before or during puberty tended to retain parts of their younger disposition—no matter how old their minds grew. For that reason, she liked to keep those Hunters in groups of ‘peerage.’

Calypso’s entrance into the ranks was as normal as any other’s. She met Lieutenant Grace, the girl who had taken over the role when her sister Zoe died almost three years before. To think she missed her sister by only a few short years...

She was equipped with the standard-issue Hunter clothing and supplies and assigned two bunkmates. Inez was one of the younger (looking) girls, maybe thirteen when she joined. Gretchen, her other bunkmate, was Inez’s complete opposite in every way. 

Inez was small, her face round, and her cheeks utterly pinchable. Her skin was a dark, warm brown and her short hair sat on her head in two neat puffs. She welcomed Calypso with a grin and a firm handshake, her hands surprising Calypso with their callouses. 

Gretchen, on the other hand, was well over six feet tall with pale blond hair and even paler skin. Her mouth was set in a thin-lipped scowl and her eyebrows pinched a crease where they were furrowed together. The few words she spoke were in a gruff, raspy voice tinged with disdain or disinterest (Calypso couldn’t tell which), and to welcome her she simply gave a curt nod. 

The two of them got along well, though. They must have been partners for a long time because they preformed their nightly rituals in perfect tandem that first night. They brushed their teeth and spit the foamy paste outside by the tree line together, they both ca in and rifled through their bags and then they started to care for each other’s hair. One would brush and the other would journal while she did—it was fascinating to watch. 

Inez chattered cheerily away while Gretchen listened, always looking in deep concentration and giving the occasional nod or hum in response as she wrote neat, blocky letters in her journal. Inez expertly unplaited the long braid hanging down between Gretchen’s shoulder blades and brushed it carefully, taking her time before  rebraiding it tightly. Then they switched places and Gretchen took care with rubbing product into Inez’s scalp and Inez fell silent for the first time since they’d been introduced. She wrote down what Calypso assumed to be the event of her day in a thick, plain leather journal. Gretchen had one exactly the same, but she had only been halfway through hers whereas Inez filled the last page in her journal before shutting and binding the covers with a long strand of twine. 

Gretchen looked over at Calypso in the corner where she was sitting on her Hunter issue silver sleeping bag, going through her pack. Calypso heard the murmur of her voice as Gretchen whispered something to Inez. Inez nodded and Gretchen turned back to Calypso.

“Do you want help with your hair?” She asked. “Your braids look nice, but I thought I’d ask.”

The offer made her pause for a moment. “Oh. Thank you,” She finally said. “But I don’t have to redo my braids just yet.” 

Inez looked up as Gretchen pulled her hair into a loose bun at the base of her head. “Gretchen and I are  _ very  _ good with braids, if you ever want any help.”

Gretchen nodded. “It can be fun.”

Calypso smiled. “I appreciate it.”

Gretchen made an effort to press her lips into a neutral expression, which Calypso guessed was about as close to a smile that the archer was willing to go.

“You have a journal and will somewhere in there, too. Lady Artemis likes us to document our lives.”

“And feelings,” Gretchen added. “Or stories. Anything you want.”

She nodded, finding her own leather journal and ballpoint pen in the bottom of her bag. “I guess you’ll need a new one soon, Inez. I noticed yours was almost full.”

She shook her head, securing a silk scarf around her hair as she settled into her sleeping bag. “No, it’s charmed. They never run out of pages—and the quills never run out of ink. I’m not sure exactly how it works but somehow it does.”

She nodded thoughtfully. Pouring herself into weaving or gardening was something she was used to and good at, but usually, it was to keep her mind  _ away _ from self-speculative thoughts. She wasn’t sure how easily she’d take to delving into them.

Gretchen slipped into her sleeping bag, pulling it up to her neck and resting her head on her arm. “You should write about your first days,” she advised. “You’ll want to remember them a couple of hundred years from now.”

They left the lantern for Calypso to pinch out after she’d gotten everything situated, maybe jotted something down in the journal. She thought about it. The pages were smooth and cool to the touch, unlined and a soft creamy color by the flickering lantern. She thought about scrawling something down, anything, maybe just the date. The realization she didn’t even know what year it was weighed heavily on her bones as she settled down and tried to fall asleep to the sounds of crickets outside the tent and the chorus of soft breaths around her.

***

Life with the hunters was simple and uncomplicated. They made camp somewhere, hunted for their meals, and practiced their survival skills, devoting a special amount of time to teaching Calypso everything she needed to know. She was something of a pet project for everyone. 

Making nets and setting traps and snares she mastered very quickly. She was fair at archery and with knives, but her real fascination came when Thalia introduced her to a myriad of modern weapons. There was one in particular that  _ really  _ piqued her interest: The Shotgun.

Just holding it gave her a rush of power she’d never felt before and when the kickback thudded against her, every nerve in her body was alight with  adrenaline . She hadn’t his the target even once (a practice dummy in the likeness of the Hero Orion,) not by a long shot; but she was itching to reload and try again. She could feel the manic urge to spend every waking moment perfecting her shot and technique starting to creep into the edges of her thoughts. Thalia Grace put a hand on her shoulder to slow her, to bring her back to reality. She was kneeling in a  dewy field, moisture seeping through the fabric of her hunter issued trousers. The sun was well-hidden behind the gray clouds and it smelled like rain was less than an hour off. 

“Cool it, Cal,” She said, a laugh on her lips. “You’ve already gone through a box of ammo already. Can’t have you getting  _ too  _ trigger happy before you’ve had a chance to try out everything.”

“I like this one.” Her voice was firm and decisive. “I want to master this.”

This time Thalia did laugh. “You will,” she assured. “And many others.”

Calypso accepted her hand and let Thalia pull her to her feet. She brushed off her trousers and startled when Thalia threw an arm over her shoulders on their way back to camp. “Y’know, Cal, I think I’m going to enjoy spending an eternity with you.”

Calypso gulped and slipped a nervous arm around Thalia’s middle, pulling her good-naturedly off balance as they walked. She stumbled and when the two of them regained their footing they devolved into laughter.

_ Yeah _ , she thought,  _ I could spend an eternity like this.  _

_ ***  _

The old truck was the ugliest, loudest, most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. 

It was summer and the hunters were somewhere in North America, and by the precursor of ‘North’, one might get the impression that Summers might be particularly mild in that part of the world. This was, tragically, not the case. Calypso swore she was melting—Ogygia never got this hot. ‘

She had taken to fanning herself with a silver baseball cap until Inez politely informed her that the movement of her arm would just counteract what slight breeze she was able to feel on her face. The logic was sound, but she just kept fanning herself as the  troupe kept a steady pace hiking through the mountain range.

A few minutes ago they had come out of the woods to a farm. There were cornstalks up to her knees and a small white house at the edge of the fields—but better than that was the barn looming just  beyond it. It was huge and red with white trim and the double doors were standing open. It was filled with all sorts of well-used  equipment but what really caught Calypso’s eye was the vehicle parked just inside.

Its huge tires made it stand much higher off the ground than normal cars and it’s black, matte paint job made Calypso suspect there had been a lot of custom work done on it. She immediately scrambled up over the side of the truck and into the flatbed of it. 

“What’s this?” She demanded, slapping the hood.

There was a collective weary-yet-endeared sigh throughout the girls. Thalia answered, leaning against the driver’s side door. “It’s a truck. It’s for hauling stuff so you don’t have to squeeze it all in the trunk of your car. It belongs to one of the waystation caretakers that Lady Artemis is having dinner in town with right now.”

Inez and Gretchen were already beside her in the bed of the truck. (Of course, they’d seen and driven trucks before. Even this truck, actually, but Cal’s excitement was contagious and it gave them an excuse to climb stuff that would usually get them reprimanded if a newbie hadn’t done it first.)

“Well, it  _ fucks,”  _ Calypso swore. 

Inez shot Gretchen a dirty look. “Tell me you did not teach her your new-aged vulgarity.”

Gretchen’s only responses were shaking shoulders and lips bit together to keep from giving in to her laughter. 

“ Lieutenant ,” Calypso’s whole body was tense with excitement. “Can we drive somewhere?  _ Please?”  _

Maybe if Thalia had been at the job a couple more decades she would have at least pretended to hesitate. Maybe a couple of centuries and she would have even said no—but she hadn’t, so she didn’t.

“Okay,” She said and then turned to address the group. “If you’re going, get in. Leave your supplies and your  _ weapons  _ here,” She ordered. “Can’t have you scaring the locals with the arsenal.” 

She had to jump to even get her foot on the step to open the handle, this thing was an absolute monster. The doors were unlocked and there was a spare set of keys in the glovebox. Admittedly, this was not a good way to keep a vehicle from getting stolen, but it  _ was  _ a good way to keep a feral group of girls from breaking a window and hotwiring it. The door slammed behind her and the engine revved to life. At least five girls called shotgun and raced to the other side of the truck to try to be the first to squeeze herself next to Thalia on the long leather bench in the front of the cab. Only three fit next to her and the remaining twenty were pulled up into the back of the truck by Cal and her bunkmates. This was definitely illegal but hopefully they were far enough into the boonies that no cops would stop them. If they could catch her, that is.

There was a chorus of shouts, dust coming up in clouds around the wheels as she pulled out of the barn and into the sun. The heat was now a background factor as the thrill of adventure overtook them. 

Thalia stuck her head out the window before she went any further. “Cal?” She shouted over the engine. The entire truck shook with the sheer force of it. 

“Yes, Lieutenant?” Calypso’s voice was giddy with excitement. She was still standing, gripping the top of the truck and hooking her fingers into the open sunroof.

“I think when we get back I’m going to teach you to drive this thing!” 

Another chorus of whoops rang out. Even the smallest of them knew how to drive and it was time to add Calypso to the ranks.

Calypso grinned. “ _ Hell _ yeah! And we need to pick up  Swedish Fish while we’re in town,” She told Thalia. “So Lady Artemis won’t be mad at us when she finds out we stole the truck!” 

Thalia laughed and threw her head back, stomping on the gas. The truck jerked forward and they went speeding off down the bumpy dirt road.

As the floor rumbled beneath her feet and tried to throw her off balance Calypso held steady to the roof, letting the cool breeze wash over her and blow her hair around her face while her friends laughed around her. Yeah, she could spend eternity like this. 

So maybe family was hard to define. Calypso had made her peace with that—but if anyone ever asked her, she knew what she would say:   


Family is the cool breeze on your face, arm to arm with your sisters. Family is their loud chattering and cuss words whispered into your ear and trusting that the girl at the wheel will never steer you wrong. Family is having your sisters by your side no matter what, even for the smallest of adventures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely not the last story I'll write about Calypso, but this is the end of the story of her liberation. I left hints at other stories I want to tell in this chapter, but this is where we'll leave her for now. <3 Thanks again to Petiri (@blackpercy on tumblr) for letting me write his idea. This was so fun to write and I hope you enjoyed reading it. <3

**Author's Note:**

> For Artemis' hairstyle I used the thumbnail from this YouTube tutorial as writing reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT8_iR3h1SM so it's the least I can do to put a link here. Hope you guys enjoyed the story. (Petiri, this came out really serious but in the next chapter it will be fun and they will get Swedish Fish from the gas station I promise!!)


End file.
